Advanced Manufacturing

Pittsburgh: We Still Make Things Here.

We still make plenty of things in the Pittsburgh region -- from pillows to plastics --but we're best known as a world leader in manufacturing related to the materials sciences like steel and specialty metals. We're also a national leader when it comes to chemicals, energy and water filtration.

The region is home to about 100 corporate research and development centers at such companies as Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies, Covestro LLC (formerly Bayer MaterialScience), Eaton Corp., Elliott Group, Kennametal, Koppers, MSA, Thermo Fisher Scientific and – of course -- U.S. Steel. Westinghouse Electric Co. designs, engineers, builds and maintains nuclear power facilities around the world, while PPG Industries, Calgon Carbon, LANXESS, NOVA Chemicals are leaders in high-tech coating and chemical production, along with water treatment and filtration technologies. Acutronic, ExOne and Paramount Industries are leaders in the emerging field of additive manufacturing or 3D printing, giving U.S.manufacturers a competitive edge in innovation, design and output. (Some of the advanced manufacturing work can also be considered as part of the region's health care and life sciences sector and burgeoning energy sector.)

While U.S. manufacturing has struggled to recover from the “Great Recession,” with employment down 13.5 percent since 2007, the Pittsburgh sector has fared better.Some 101,056 individuals are employed at 2,918 companies, many of them small to mid-sized organizations that participate in the global supply chain of energy and materials.

Available advanced manufacturing jobs tend to be specialized, with high demand for "mid-level" workers – individuals with a high school diploma and some specialized training or certifications from a community or technical college. The community colleges in the 10 counties offer such programs, while Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, West Virginia University and the Ohio State University produce thousands of engineers every year.